Conventionally, attention has been paid to the internal body fat content of a person in view of health maintenance. Specifically, since a rise in internal body fat content of a person may increase a risk for the person to get so-called adult diseases, monitoring the internal body fat content of the person may prevent the adult diseases. Body Mass Index (BMI) has been widely used as an index to evaluate the internal body fat content since it can be easily calculated from the height and weight of an individual person.
Another useful index to evaluate the internal body fat content of a person is a body-fat ratio. Recently, various types of body fat meters capable of measuring the body-fat ratio have become available on the market and, with these body fat meters, the body-fat ratio can be easily measured at home or the like.
Among the internal body fats, the visceral fat has been believed to be a factor particularly contributing to various complications of arteriosclerosis, diabetes, and so on. For this reason, the visceral fat content has been becoming an important factor in view of health maintenance.
The BMI and the body-fat ratio described above are information obtained as average data on internal body fat content in the whole body. Hence, even if the result of the BMI or the body-fat ratio does not indicate any health problem, it does not necessarily mean that there is no health problem in relation to the visceral fat content.
Information on the visceral fat can be obtained through a diagnostic method such as abdominal tomography by means of CT scanning, MRI, and so on. This method allows directly observing the abdominal portion itself, thereby making it possible to accurately obtain information on the visceral fat.
Such a method, however, is problematic in that the procedure requires a large-scale apparatus installed in a major hospital, a certain length of time necessary for measurement and data analysis, and highly specific technical knowledge for the procedure and data analysis. Hence, the method is not suitable for use at home or the like to obtain the visceral fat content.
On the other hand, the weight of a person represents the weight of a whole body of the person including the internal body fat and has been used as a typical measure for determining a level of obesity of the person. The weight has been easily measured for many years with a weight scale. Thus, if there is a device capable of measuring the weight used as a measure for determining obesity or the like in relation to health maintenance and providing information on the visceral fat through a simple procedure, a person can individually make a judgment more appropriate for his health maintenance.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a visceral fat determining device with a weight-measuring function capable of measuring the weight and providing information on the visceral fat and which can be used at home or the like through a simple procedure.